Whiteback Sketches, pt.9

You know, when doing whiteback card sketches, there's a good chance that if there's a woman on the card art, even if there's lots of other stuff going on, I'm going to focus on that character when I sketch. Sometimes, as with "Darkblast" below, sometimes I draw a related scene to the front of the card.

Also, Magus of the Tabernacle is so far the most requested sketchcard, with Soul Warden approaching it. And this is my favorite version here below

(L) Uba Mask | (R) Magus of the Tabernacle

Darkblast

In any case, here are a few more whitebacks, and a reminder than you can get your own, from a broad assortment of Magic and World of Warcraft cards. Note that I usually ask for a month in which to do them, as I slip these in while between projects or while waiting for feedback from a client or whatever.

The ArtOrder: Make Love, Not Art

Article three over at The ArtOrder is up today. My motivation with this column is that over time I'll address a number of life-issues that have to do with an illustration career. The first couple were a little more on the professional side: article 1 was about transitioning a career from one venue to another. Article 2 was on fostering a spirit of continuing to learn new non-art related things, and how that can impact your work.

Article 3 begins the first of a few curveball topics that I'm going to pepper into the series. I don't interview anyone this time, and it's not really about art. But I think it is pretty important and there's some personal biography there at least, if that sort of thing interests you. And though I've tailored the post to illustrators, it may very well apply to you, too.

I'll be back next week with some new artwork!

In the meantime, why not head over and take a look at this week's lengthy blog post.

Goodbye, Thomas

This series of requiem posts is usually about some artist whose work I learned a lot from and I looked up to as I was developing. This one is a bit different.

Thomas Kinkade™, aka "The Painter of Light™," passed away last Friday.

I've mentioned it before in some capacity, but Thomas Kinkade helped put me through art school.

After graduating high school, I took my first summer job working at Suncoast Motion Picture Company (Now FYE). I was furiously saving up money before I began my first semester at art college, and enjoying it well enough. As the semester started, my wife (then girlfriend) was herself in college and told me about a job she saw on the jobs bulletin board at her college's art department. It was in San Jose (my hometown, where I was living), and would be working for some guy named Thomas Kinkade. I had no idea who that was--no one did, quite yet, outside of a small but quickly growing print collector's community.

I went to the small warehouse of Lightpost Publishing (later Media Arts Group Inc., then other entities) and interviewed as a bright-eyed art student who thought it was better for his day job to be art related, much as I enjoyed retail. Kinkade's work at the time seemed country, down-home, but at the time had a more desaturated palette (much more use of shade and tone than later--ie., he mixed more black and gray into his colors), and was far less garish and kitschy than it became. It was evident that he was a talented painter, and I appreciated some of the pieces he'd done in that era (this was late 1991). Even his early cottages--I have nothing against cottages on their own, per se--after all, I did live in the Cotswolds in England for a short time, myself! The ones he painted then were much more like something you might actually see...including the gray of England.

(L:) Then (R:) Now

My job was to be an "artisan highlighter," as the term became known. We worked in a side room in the office area of the warehouse, and each morning we'd pre-mix batches of oil paint to correspond to bits of window light, highlit areas of foliage and grass on a given canvas print, then would set about judiciously dabbing paint onto the canvas print such that the piece took on a "print+" aspect, with some actual hand-touches on it. Then it was marked up a lot and sold as part of the signed limited editions. Whatever, I was paid better than Suncoast and spent a LOT of time looking at Thomas Kinkade art, learning a little about that industry, and watching what became a meteoric rise in popularity over the next few years. I should note that at least during my association with Lightpost, this was never sold as other than what it was--assistants touching up the canvas prints which were signed by Thomas.

I wish I could remember, but for quality control purposes we were assigned a number we had to mark the back of the stretcher bar with for each piece we worked on. I'm not sure but I think my number was maybe 7. If I could know for sure, it'd be fun to think some of you might have family members or friends with one of these old canvas prints that I'd worked on, hanging in their home.

Because they knew I was an aspiring painter and illustrator (not all were, some were design students, others just various individuals who could do the work), a few months later I and a couple other fellows were tapped to go out to Thomas' home, then in Placerville. We'd load up a van full of stacks of new print editions--thousands at a time--and drive out to Placerville. We'd haul them down to a room, set a stack before him, and I'd sit there pulling each print from under his hand as he very quickly signed through these stacks over the course of most of a day.

I remember the first time I met him. We pulled up in the late morning and knocked, and waited for an answer. None came. We stood around for a few minutes (before the days of normal cellphone use), and then turned to see Thomas bounding up the road at the end of a morning jog. He was in fairly good shape--he'd have to be, since jogging in Placerville to his home meant jogging hills. I note this because it was striking--he was vigorous and in-shape, and it was a stark contrast to how he became over time, when apparently he stopped exercising and put on a considerable amount of weight.

"Yosemite Valley," Kinkade before he was Kinkade, also, one of my favorite places on Earth.

Thom was nice to me. I enjoyed visiting his home, entire walls hung with thick-framed original art of his own or others--plein air pieces, work done before his major publishing days (some of it really well done), student work. I recall a student-era copy of Norman Rockwell's "Let's Give Him Enough and On Time" hanging on one wall, if I'm not mistaken. We talked art. We talked about his time at Berkeley and Art Center, and he regaled me with stories about his friendship back then with James Gurney, their time traveling and working on Fire and Ice. Gurney had just released Dinotopia and I definitely loved his work--we exchanged many favorable thoughts about it. One time we watched a documentary on Rockwell while laboriously signing. He liked iced coffee. As Thom became a celebrity and later became perhaps the most hated figure in contemporary art (while simultaneously being the most loved in American art, by some measures), this was the Thom I knew in my couple of years with Lightpost.

I enjoyed seeing his studio, down the hill from his home, a converted barn. The landscape from the back of his home was gorgeous, cows mooing sporadically throughout the day. His studio was well-lit and spacious. He had a large side area where he would prep his canvases (usually canvas glued to masonite, as I recall). He was only the second working artist whose studio and life I had been able to peek into.

We did these signings maybe 4-5 times during my time at Lightpost. I showed him my work a couple of times, during the occasional visit he'd make to the San Jose office, and he was encouraging.

(I got to see the original of this one, small, maybe 6x8" or 8x10". I still like it)

Later he moved down to the Bay Area, presumably to be closer to the business aspect of things. I visited at his studio in Los Gatos, above a business in downtown opposite corner of where Swendsen's Ice Cream stood for years. Much less bucolic, but I'd still kill for such a studio space. He made fun of my beat up car and I looked over recent plein air paintings he'd done in Europe. A totally different beast than his marketed works.

His original paintings, at least in that era, were really something. Even the more Candyland-colored ones, if you could get past the imagery, had a wonderful surface quality and his grasp of color was really great. It was also surreal for me to realize the prices the originals were selling for at the time.

I left the company at the end of 1993; my wife had taken a job working in the corporate offices and remained another couple of years. The last time I saw Thom was probably summer '94, as I was beginning my own career. There was a company party at his home near Los Gatos. Saw some drawings he'd done (didn't see much pencil work from him), at least one of which was a nice rendering of a moose.

He was a big personality, had a lot of gusto, and by any measurement had a whirlwind of a life. His wife Nanette was kind, his young daughters were cute and by now must be lovely young ladies. My condolences to them, though I was of course just another person from the office to them, likely, utterly unmemorable. I'm sure to Thom himself I was ultimately unmemorable--there were so many people involved in his life and business at that time. That's fine--I'm not trying to portray things as if we were great buddies or anything.

In the years since, "Thomas Kinkade" has become a byword among artists. A few of my illustrator friends find no end of humor when they learn about this story. Some of them have had very, very, negative things to say about him. I'm not an apologist for his work, or the man. I understand and in some respects agree. As with most things, I am able to appreciate the appreciable, and can forget the rest. As well, much of the ire built up against him has to do with things that occurred well after I left, so I frankly can't comment either way. My time in that world was short and limited. But regardless, it's been interesting to note that Kinkade has become an indelible part of my own artistic biography. And though it will always carry a little stigma with it, I'm ultimately glad to have had the association.

Tips and Techniques: Grab Bag 2

Elemental Anchorite: Retouch 
When I was a teenager, I remember reading someone or other talking about their use of oils. I was just starting with paint, had only used oils a couple of times, and was preferring acrylics at the time. I think it may have been the late Keith Parkinson writing. Not entirely sure. In any case, the artist was saying one reason he loved oils so much was that the colors stayed very much the same when dry as when wet.

I was new to painting, but I'd already encountered the problem referred to, in acrylics. Essentially, as with most things, they look darker or deeper-colored wet than they do dry. This applies to a colored piece of clothing, or even wet paper. When painting, as your colors dry they tend to go matte--they become lighter and less vibrant. Acrylic isn't the worst offender, but it can certainly exhibit this behavior. A quick slap of gloss medium can get your color back to full-strength. This is called applying a retouch layer to a painting. If you try to add fresh color without it, when the new color dries it'll be very mismatched because you're comparing a wet swatch of paint to a dried, desaturated swatch. It also will go on pretty rough as dried paint feels different than other surfaces.

So I thought, well that does sound like an advantage to oils. As I said, I think I'd used oils all of once, maybe twice at that point. I suppose they had more or less kept their color. I don't remember. I figured when you know what you're doing, the effect is probably more pronounced. So I got more experience under my belt, and eventually switched to oils completely, years later. In retrospect, I don't know what the artist was was writing about. I've found oils two be a worse offender than acrylics, often varying greatly. Whereas with gouache, you can count on all your colors matting out fairly evenly, with oils the effect can vary depending on all matter of things: the particular color, the brand of that color, your medium, the surface, the binding oil used, and so on. All of these often conspire to require a retouch, which isn't as easy to deal with as in acrylics due to drying times.

As I was working on the Anchorite, this became a problem. I began by working on the far background, working towards the front as I went. I mentioned that I was attempting to vary between a very narrow value range, using saturation to push things back or pull them forward. I managed to finish the sky and about half of the furthest landscape on my first day of working. I saved my colors for the next day, to alter and continue. When I set to work the next day, all the color had gotten sucked out of the painting. I'm not sure what combination of things led to it in this case, but the whole thing looked ashen and lifeless.

So I began to apply a retouch. In this case I used very thinly brushed-out amount of Neo-Megilp by Gamblin. Ah, what a nice feeling, seeing your art come back to life! I was smart enough to grab my camera and take a picture of the piece half-way through the process, with the landscape divided left and right. Have a look:

Above: before applying medium, the whole thing looked as ashen as at right.
Below: both sides after retouch applied:

I didn't intend to actually reprint over those parts, so I used the faster drying medium for this purpose. I just needed the detail back so I could match and continue. If I were going to apply a second coat of paint to an area--say, a face that had gone dull after drying, then I would have used a slow drying medium. Lately I've just been oiling-out using walnut oil. It's a very slow drier, so it has to go on very, very thin. It then allows the colors to come back to life, while also providing a slick surface to paint on, as it would be if it were still wet. And any drying agents used with my paint will counteract the slow drying part. You just don't want the surface getting tacky as you work, which would happen within an hour using the faster drying medium for this purpose on an area you plan to continue working on.

But, if there are only quick little spot-touches than need doing, which I know can be applied very quickly, I do indeed oil-out using the faster-drying medium. I'm an illustrator, so speed is key.

If you aren't familiar with the final piece or want more information, you can see it here.

Elemental Anchorite, pt. 2:  Grab bag within a grab bag
You'll note that, as with last week's part 2, above I had traced down mainly the outer contours of the figure, but allowed myself to freely paint over those contours in places, when necessary. For instance, those bit of cloud low on the horizon got swiped right over the head, important to retain the feel of the cloud passing behind the head. Had the head been printed out, with all its detail, or completely traced down, I would have not wanted to lose the drawing, so that feeling of the clouds would have been a bit compromised. Later, I came back in and transferred the entire thing back over the dried paint.

I painted this piece on treated canson paper over masonite, which had been my primary surface of choice for much of the 2000s. I'm mostly working on primed masonite panels the past couple of years. However, I had this board laying around, prepared but unpainted, and its paper-color suited this piece as an underpainting. How long had it been sitting around? Well I painted this late summer 2011, and the very board has the "bisque" paper I applied in my YouTube demonstration back in March 2010. So, it sat around a year-and-a-half before being used.